Tag: Ade Akinbiyi

The strange tale of Lorenzo Pinamonte, a gentleman of Verona

IF CASH-STRAPPED Brighton hadn’t been outbid by Brentford for a little-known Italian striker in the opening months of the 21st century, a teenage forward who went on to earn a place in the club’s history might never have appeared in an Albion shirt.

‘If only’, ‘but’ and ‘maybe’ preface many a football fan’s dashed hopes but in the case of Lorenzo Pinamonte, it seems the Gods were smiling on the Seagulls.

The imposing Italian scored only three goals in 26 appearances for the Bees after their £75,000 gazumped Albion’s bid to take him permanently from Bristol City.

Thankfully Brighton’s fortunes were vastly improved by the chap they signed instead: a raw reserve at City’s neighbours Rovers called Bobby Zamora!

Let’s go back to the last month of the 20th century. After a spectacular start to life back in Brighton following the two-year exile playing home games at Gillingham – including an opening day 6-0 crushing of Mansfield Town – mid-table Albion were struggling to find the back of the net with any consistency.

Twice-red-carded striker Darren Freeman missed multiple games through suspension, former soldier David Cameron struggled to cut it at leading the line, and former England Youth international Aidan Newhouse didn’t live up to Micky Adams’ expectations either.

That’s when Adams turned to the first Italian to represent the Albion, 22-year-old 6’3” Pinamonte, who was struggling to get a game under Tony Pulis, then boss of the relegated Robins (they’d dropped down to the third tier the season before).

He made his debut for ‘flu-hit Albion away to Swansea City on a rainy night at the Vetch Field, only meeting his teammates for the first time when being picked up en route to Wales for the game.

“Pinamonte led the line as a lone striker,” recalled wearebrighton.com. “A thankless task was made even harder when the Albion were reduced to 10 men following a red card for Jamie Campbell with only 25 minutes played.”

While makeshift Albion lost 2-0 to the Swans, their run of defeats was halted courtesy of a 1-1 Boxing Day draw at home to Barnet and a last game of the century 3-1 win at Rotherham. The 3 January match at home to Exeter City not only famously saw Freeman score the first football league goal of the 21st century, it also featured a brace from the lanky loan signing as Albion won 4-2.

It seems Adams had seen enough to want to make Pinamonte’s move permanent, but matters became complicated when Pulis decided to quit the Robins and take over at Portsmouth.

Because the departing manager’s successor may have had a different view of the striker, he signed on loan for a second month, rather than permanently, Adams telling the Argus: “We are pleased to keep Lorenzo for another month. The situation at Bristol won’t be resolved for a few weeks, so a permanent deal is up in the air.”

The same article declared that Pinamonte wanted to join Albion permanently but the bid put in by chairman Dick Knight was below the asking price, and Brentford, a division above Albion at the time, had also made an offer.

Pinamonte unsurprisingly felt in limbo and confessed to being distracted when he played in a 1-0 defeat against Leyton Orient.

“In your mind you wonder what is happening, whether you are going to stay or go, so there was a little bit of confusion.

“That probably affected me. I was thinking about it, and perhaps not concentrating,” he said. “I think I have done well so far, but not in that game.”

Cover boy Lorenzo

The turn round in form took the Seagulls to within five points of a play-off place but Pinamonte’s head was turned by the chance to play at a higher level and Brentford eventually got their man.

Offered a lucrative three-and-a-half-year contract at Griffin Park, Pinamonte admitted to the Argus: “I am a little bit upset to be leaving and I would love to come back in the future. I wanted to stay but for my future it is better to leave. Money talks and I will be playing in a higher division.”

A disappointed Adams admitted he would have to look elsewhere for a big, hold-up striker. “We thought Dave Cameron would come in and be that big centre forward and Aidan Newhouse also. Unfortunately Dave prefers the ball into his body and feet so he can jink and turn.

“Big Lorenzo came in and gave us that other option. Gary Hart and Darren Freeman gambled off him. Now that he has gone, to get the best out of them and the other forwards at the club, we may need to bring another big man in.”

Adams later told Greville Waterman, one of the voices of authority on all things Brentford: “We were going through an indifferent spell and struggling for a big centre forward. David Cameron wasn’t up to it and we had been outbid by Brentford for Lorenzo Pinamonte, so I called Ian Holloway at Bristol Rovers who told me: ‘I have got a young lad who’s been on loan at Bath City. He’s only 19 and as raw as anything, but he has scored a few goals for them.’

“I was not totally convinced but we were desperate and the clincher was when Ian told me he was only earning £140 per week, so I said ‘send him down,’ and the rest is history!”

For his part, Pinamonte reflected some years later that his time at Brighton probably just came too early in his life. “Maybe if I had gone when I was 25 or 26 it would have been different for me,” he told Brian Owen of the Argus in 2016. “I enjoyed England but it probably came too early for me. I was there alone and I was very young.”

Pinamonte’s time at Brentford certainly divided opinion. ‘Smilely’ on griffinpark.org described him as “Lorenzo Pinthetailonthedonkey” but ‘Saffrey’ on the same platform said: “I think he’s been unlucky with (Ron) Noades as he was never really given a chance, as Uncle Ron brought in that donkey Steve ‘Murray’ Jones, when he should have given Pinamonte, who had recently joined the club, a decent run out.”

The Bees lured Pinamonte from Albion’s grasp – thankfully

‘Chalfont Bees’ reckoned: “All I’ve seen of Lorenzo is him getting booked or worse. He just doesn’t seem to be good enough at the moment and I can’t see him improving. I say cut our losses and get rid of him so as to give other strikers a chance.”

And ‘Holysmith’ opined: “Although Pinamonte hasn’t done much, he has a good strike rate for the amount of time he has played for Brentford. The problem is he doesn’t move about much.”

In the 2000-01 season, Pinamonte went out on a mid-season loan to Leyton Orient and at the season’s end he was released by Steve Coppell.

As he explained in that 2016 interview with Brian Owen, he then returned to Italy and spent eight years playing in the Italian third division until retiring as a pro at the age of 31.

Born on 9 May 1978, a gentleman of Verona (Caprino Veronese to be precise), the young Pinamonte was with southern Italy side Foggia before trying his luck in England. He joined Bristol City on a free transfer in the 1997-98 season.

In City’s disastrous 1998-99 season, when they were relegated from Division One (now the Championship) in bottom place, Pinamonte celebrated his 21st birthday by scoring the only goal of the game on his debut as Norwich City were beaten at Ashton Gate in the last fixture of the campaign.

With their fate already sealed and with an eye to the following season, Swedish manager Benny Lennartsson, who had won only five of the 30 games he’d taken charge of, chose to blood a few youngsters and handed Pinamonte his debut up front alongside £1.2m signing Ade Akinbiyi.

Five minutes before half time, the City faithful finally had a moment to cheer, as Bristol Evening Post reporter Richard Latham recorded. “Akinbiyi, made captain for the day against the club who launched his career, headed down a Micky Bell corner and Pinamonte stuck out a long right leg to find the top corner of the net from close range.”

Lennartsson was relieved of his duties at the end of the season and two months later he was replaced by former Gillingham boss Pulis, who sent the young Italian striker on a fruitless loan at Carlisle United (he didn’t play a game) before answering Brighton’s call for reinforcements.

Off the field, Albion’s matchday programme informed us how Pinamonte was staying at the Courtlands Hotel in Hove during his temporary stay where the manager was Italian Jo Guiseppe-Messina, and he had also enjoyed the hospitality of Angelo Cavalli, the owner of Topolino Duo restaurant in Hove.

Apart from scrapbook memories of his time with the Albion, Pinamonte continued his friendship with Cavalli; the restaurateur had been to visit him at the hotel at Lake Garda that he ran after his professional playing days were over.

Ex-Clarets boss Steve Cotterill not always ‘Mr Popular’

FORMER Burnley manager Steve Cotterill hasn’t always been popular during a nomadic football career that’s taken him the length and breadth of the country.

But he made a lasting connection with Brighton fans after impressing during an all-too-brief playing spell in 1992.

“I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Brighton and, whenever we’ve gone there, I’ve always had a great reception from their supporters. They’ve been terrific,” he wrote in his programme notes prior to a Cheltenham v Brighton fixture.

Injury curtailed Cotterill’s playing career – he endured 18 knee operations – but he made up for it by taking charge of nine different clubs over a period spanning more than 20 years.

His three years and seven months keeping Burnley in the second tier while seeing key players sold or injured was largely recognised as a decent achievement in the circumstances. Many of his other appointments were a lot shorter, and at times acrimonious.

Starting out as a player on the non-league circuit, it was Cotterill’s prolific scoring for Burton Albion (44 goals in 74 games) that prompted Wimbledon to snap him up in 1989.

Unfortunately, he sustained a serious cruciate ligament knee injury that halted his progress with the Dons and Albion boss Barry Lloyd gave him a lifeline to try to resurrect his career with the Seagulls.

Against a backdrop of financial instability, Lloyd had struggled to find adequate replacements for the prolific Mike Small and John Byrne in the 1991-92 season. Mark Gall, signed from Maidstone, offered a glimmer of hope, but Raphael Meade and Mark Farrington were disappointing to say the least, and Albion had been relegated back to the third tier a year after being one game from winning their place back amongst the elite in a play-off final against Notts County.

As the 1992-93 season got under way, Gall was unavailable due to a knee injury that eventually forced him to retire, Meade had departed and questions continued over Farrington, so Lloyd turned to loan signings Cotterill and Paul Moulden from Oldham Athletic.

It looked like he’d cracked it as the pair combined well and started scoring goals. Indeed, Cotterill scored four in 11 games, which was a promising start. Unfortunately, parent club Wimbledon wanted the sort of fee for him that cash-strapped Albion couldn’t afford, so he returned to south west London and eventually moved on to Bournemouth the following summer for £80,000.

In an interview with the Argus in October 2016, Moulden told Brian Owen: “One of the reasons I loved playing for Brighton was Mr Banter himself, Steve Cotterill. We met up like we had never been apart. I’d start the banter and he’d finish it or vice versa.

“We destroyed many a centre-half partnership during that three months. I was gutted to leave. I mean that very sincerely – absolutely gutted. I couldn’t believe nobody would have bought me and Steve as a pairing.

“We were both out of favour with our clubs and we hit it off so well. But it wasn’t to be – at Brighton or at any club.”

Born in Cheltenham on 20 July 1964, Cotterill’s injury-ravaged playing career came to a close at Dean Court. He’d won the player of the year title three times and scored 18 goals in 55 starts for the Cherries, but another knee injury finally put paid to his playing career, and he turned his attention to managing.

His first assignment was in Ireland where he succeeded his former Wimbledon teammate Lawrie Sanchez at League of Ireland’s Sligo Rovers. But his hometown club Cheltenham Town offered him a management opening back in England in 1997, and he steered them from Southern League football into the Conference and then into the bottom tier of the Football League. He twice won the Manager of the Year title and earned another promotion, to the third tier, via a play-off final victory over Rushden & Diamonds.

After leaving Cheltenham, Cotterill had a controversial five-month, 13 game stay as Stoke City boss at the start of the 2002-03 season before quitting to join Sunderland as Howard Wilkinson’s no.2. In May 2020, Cotterill endeavoured to explain to the Stoke Sentinel the circumstances surrounding his tenure, and the board interference regarding players.

The stay on Wearside was also short lived, with the pair being dismissed after only 27 games in March 2003.

The collapse of ITV Digital coincided with Cotterill taking over from Stan Ternent as Burnley manager in the summer of 2004. When he joined, they had only eight players on the books and, despite reassurances to the contrary, within six months Robbie Blake and Richard Chaplow, who he’d hoped to build a team around, had been sold.

When Blake’s replacement Ade Akinbiyi started scoring on a regular basis, he too was sold, and when he returned to the club later, he wasn’t the same player in front of goal.

Even after Cotterill had left, Burnley directors acknowledged the platform he’d provided for their eventual elevation to the Premier League under Owen Coyle.

The excellent uptheclarets.com, summed up his time at Turf Moor, thus: “He kept us in the second tier of English football for three years and that, looking back, was some achievement in, at times, difficult financial circumstances.”

It probably said something about the Championship that when Cotterill finally departed Turf Moor in the autumn of 2007, he’d been its longest serving manager at three years and seven months.

The following year, Cotterill was offered the opportunity to try his hand in America with Minnesota Thunder but work permit issues meant it never materialised. He didn’t resurface in the English game until 2010, when he enjoyed a short but successful reign – five months in charge of Notts County. He took charge on 23 February 2010 and they were crowned League Two champions on 27 April. A month later Cotterill was on his way, appointed in June 2010 as the manager of Portsmouth.

He helped to stabilise the then Championship club against a background of financial troubles and other clubs began to cast eyes on his achievements. The persistence of Nottingham Forest finally paid off and he moved there in October 2011, but a change of ownership of the club spelled the end of his time by the Trent.

In July 2012, he was only nine months into a three-and-a-half-year contract at Nottingham Forest when the owning Al-Hasawi family decided to relieve him of his duties and go in a different direction.

He was out of the game for six months but in January 2013 accepted Harry Redknapp’s offer to join the coaching team at Queens Park Rangers until the end of the season.

He turned down the chance to stay in post the following season and in December 2013 took charge of League One Bristol City, signing another three-and-a-half-year contract.

In his second season at Ashton Gate, he steered City to promotion from League One as champions and they won the Football League Trophy. It earned Cotterill the League One Manager of the Year award.

As with other times in his career, Cotterill found his club’s better players were sold, ultimately weakening the squads he was in charge of. For example, when Sam Baldock moved from Bristol City to Brighton. Cotterill told bcfc.com: “He was a very good captain and very good goalscorer; we were sorry to see him go…that happens in football.”

Ultimately, as City struggled to attain the same level of success in the Championship as they’d experienced in the division below, Cotterill was sacked in January 2016.

Perhaps to prove the point about Cotterill not always being everybody’s cup of tea, former Albion defender Adam El-Abd vented his feelings in September 2020, explaining why he fell out of love with football following a bust-up with the manager only a short time after he moved to Bristol City.

With only three matches of the 2016-17 season left to play, Cotterill once again was grateful to Redknapp, by now manager at Birmingham City, and he joined him there as first team coach.

He subsequently left in the close season in the hope of landing a manager’s role in his own right. Ironically, that opportunity arose back at St Andrews when Redknapp was sacked in October 2017.

Cotterill told The Sun’s Graham Hill how he felt he had mellowed after 20 years in the hotseat at various clubs, although, at the time, he probably didn’t expect to be out of work again five months later.

After leaving Birmingham in March 2018, Cotterill ruptured a disc in his neck while trying to keep fit but in an interview with gloucestershirelive.co.uk declared himself fit and ready for the next challenge.

That challenge emerged in November 2020 when Cotterill took charge of League One Shrewsbury Town but he faced a bigger fight – to his health – after contracting Covid-19 and he was twice admitted to Bristol Royal Infirmary, spending some time in intensive care, suffering badly from the virus and pneumonia. He was released from hospital in March 2021 to recover at home.

He left the Shrews job in June 2023 and was out of work until January 2024, when he took charge of Forest Green Rovers.

He was unable to stave off relegation from the Football League, but he rebuilt the side during the summer of 2024 to push for promotion back to League Two. When Southend United visited The New Lawn on 15 March 2025, the 2-2 draw was Cotterill’s 1,000th game as a manager. At the time, Rovers were joint-second in the National League.

Why Saint Dan riled the Albion

DAN HARDING was promoted twice with Southampton and once with the Seagulls and later cut short his career because of family tragedy.

Personally, I’m not sure he really need to be cast as ‘public enemy no.1’ because of the way he left Brighton.

With the benefit of hindsight, it was really no surprise that he chose to turn his back on playing at Withdean in favour of Elland Road, Leeds.

OK, the stringing-out of the contract negotiations, and public slanging match that accompanied them, didn’t help matters.

But football careers are short and the Amex was a long way off becoming a reality when Harding decided to opt for pastures new.

“I really enjoyed my time at Brighton but you can’t compare the size of the two clubs or the facilities,” he told the Leeds matchday programme at the time. “It has been like going from one world to another.”

Ironically, it seems his success on the pitch with Brighton, which led to him gaining international recognition, might well have been the unsettling influence.

Former Albion boss Peter Taylor selected him for England under-21s as the 2004-05 season got underway. He made his England debut as a substitute for Micah Richards in a 3-1 win over Ukraine at the Riverside Stadium, Middlesbrough, on 17 August 2004. Future full internationals James Milner and Darren Bent were in the same squad.

He started the 8 October 2004 match against Wales at Ewood Park, Blackburn: a 2-0 win courtesy of goals from Milner and Bent. He also started the game four days later when the under 21s drew 0-0 away to Azerbaijan in Baku. His last cap came the following month in a 1-0 defeat away to Spain when he was replaced by Ben Watson. Future Albion loanee Liam Ridgewell was also a substitute in that game.

It was this platform that sowed the seeds of discord, according to former chairman Dick Knight’s take on the circumstances surrounding Harding’s acrimonious departure from the Albion.

In his autobiography Mad Man: From the Gutter to the Stars, Knight reckoned it was while on international duty that Harding was “egged on by his agent about his value after talking to players with bigger clubs, on bigger wages”.

Knight went on: “Early on, I offered him a sizeable contract renewal but he sat on it. He kept saying he wanted to stay, but I don’t think he had any intention of doing so.

“Because he was under 24, we were entitled to compensation. Shaun Harvey, the Leeds chief executive – who became CEO of the Football League in July 2013 – tested me with a couple of paltry sums before finally offering £250,000, which I rejected.”

DH Leeds action 2Via the Football League tribunal system, Knight managed to get the figure up to £850,000, part achievement-based, and with a 20 per cent sell-on clause.

All in all, not a bad return for a player who came through the Albion’s youth and reserve ranks after being spotted at 15 playing for Hove Park Colts.

Born in Gloucester on 23 December 1983, the young Harding loved kicking a football from the moment he could walk and enjoyed watching his dad, Kevan, turn out for the Army team.

The family was posted to Brighton, and Harding was taken to the Goldstone Ground by his mum, Linda. One of his earliest memories was on 23 September 1992 seeing a 17-year-old David Beckham make his Manchester United debut as a substitute for Andrei Kanchelskis in a League Cup tie that finished 1-1.

Harding joined the Albion initially on schoolboy terms for a year and was then taken on as a YTS trainee, progressing through the juniors and reserves before eventually making his first team debut on 17 August 2002, during Martin Hinshelwood’s brief reign, as a substitute for Shaun Wilkinson in a 2-0 home defeat to Norwich City.

After Hinshelwood was replaced by Steve Coppell, and Harding sustained a back injury, the youngster played no further part in the first team picture that season, but he was awarded a new contract in April 2003.

In the first part of the 2003-04 season, Harding was a regular on the bench, but, on 21 February 2004, Coppell’s successor, Mark McGhee, gave him his full debut in place of the suspended Kerry Mayo in a 3-0 win over Bournemouth.

Dan Harding

Harding kept his place through to the end of the season, making a total of 23 appearances, including being part of the side that lifted the divisional play-off trophy at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, as the Seagulls beat Bristol City 1-0.

“In hindsight, it was a very lucky time for me. I broke into a team that was winning games and was promoted,” he told the Daily Echo. “Looking back now, I don’t think I appreciated at the time what a big achievement it was.”

Sent off in only the second game of the following season for two bookable offences, it wasn’t long before his contract discussions were aired publicly, with McGhee telling the Argus in October: “It’s starting to really frustrate me.

“Dan keeps telling us and saying publicly he wants to sign but we cannot tie his agent down to have a meeting with us. He has to be honest with us.”

Harding in turn denied he was being difficult, telling the Argus that talks were ongoing.

The off-field issues certainly seemed to be troubling Harding and McGhee publicly blamed the defender for a 2-0 defeat at Millwall in December. He was also outmuscled by Stoke City’s Ade Akinbiyi in a game at Withdean, leading to a late winner for the visitors. Across the season, McGhee dropped him on four occasions because of such inconsistency.

When he won his place back in February, he told the Argus: “I had to prove not only to the gaffer but to the other players and the fans that I want that position back.

“That’s where I prefer to play. I like to call that my position. I don’t mind playing on the left hand side of midfield or centre midfield, but I do love playing at left-back.

“Hopefully I can reproduce the same sort of form and keep my confidence up. Everyone wants to be playing, so when you are left out it’s a bit of a kick in the teeth. It’s not nice, but you have to pick yourself up and try to get back into the team.”

DH leeds action 1However, the Brighton contract offer was declined and on 7 June that summer, Harding put pen to paper on a deal with Leeds, whose fans were no doubt delighted to read that he used to follow their fortunes when he was a youngster.

“When I lived in Germany, they showed quite a lot of Leeds games on telly and, in a strange way, I kind of ended up supporting them because it was the only football I really got to see out there,” he said.

His dad later took him to a Leeds FA Cup match v Wolves, and he added: “I have to admit I have been a closet Leeds fan. Obviously, I didn’t shout about it when I was playing for Brighton and it’s kind of strange now that this move has happened.”

If Harding doubted the size of the task at Elland Road, he’d only have had to read the comments of manager Kevin Blackwell, often Neil Warnock’s no.2, who was the Leeds manager at the time.

In an article about Harding in the club programme, Blackwell said: “It has been a big transition for him. No disrespect to Brighton, but coming from the scaffolding at Withdean to Elland Road was a big step-up for Dan. He was nervous in the first couple of games, but he has started to settle down.”

He talked about how he needed to cement his place at United, and added: “If he does succeed here, all the doors will be open to him. I have no doubt that once he develops certain aspects of his game and his self-confidence, he will go a long way because he is a real athlete with a great left foot.”

Brighton fans vented their displeasure at how things had turned out every time Harding touched the ball when Leeds entertained the Seagulls on 12 September 2005; a game which finished 3-3. The fact two of Albion’s goals came from crosses on Harding’s flank prompted Blackwell to drop him for the following match.

After only seven games, Harding picked up an injury and, over the course of the season, played just 21 matches for United. In August 2006, the Yorkshire club used the full-back as a makeweight in a deal which took future Albion loanee Ian Westlake from Ipswich to Leeds.

He was a regular at Portman Road for a couple of seasons but, in his third season, manager Jim Magilton deemed him surplus to requirements and sent him out on loan to Southend United. I recall going to a match at Roots Hall and seeing him have an outstanding game against Brighton.

Later the same season, with Ipswich bobbing along in mid-table, Harding seized the chance to join Steve Coppell’s promotion-chasing Reading, and he played in their play-offs defeat to Burnley.

When Roy Keane took over at Ipswich in 2009, Harding was sold to Southampton; manager Alan Pardew’s first signing for the Saints. Harding’s former Albion youth coach, Dean Wilkins, was part of Pardew’s coaching team.

Harding reflected in an interview with the Southern Daily Echo that what followed were the happiest three years of his career, in which he played 121 games and chipped in with five goals.

In 2010-11, he was named in the PFA League One team of the year along with teammates Kelvin Davies, Jose Fonte, Adam Lallana and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

In the harsh and fickle world of football, Brighton fans relished Brighton’s 3-0 win over Southampton at the Amex on 2 January 2012 when Albion winger Will Buckley gave Harding such a torrid time that, to compound his humiliation, the former Brighton player was subbed off by boss Nigel Adkins with five minutes of the first half still to play.

Although part of the Saints side that won promotion back to the Premier League that May, Harding didn’t get the chance to play at the top level because Adkins moved him on to Nottingham Forest.

Harding talked in detail to the Echo’s Paul McNamara about life at Forest, which he found an unstable place, especially when Sean O’Driscoll, the manager who signed him, was sacked.

Although he played some games under that legendary left-back Stuart Pearce, when he took over, Harding eventually went on loan to Millwall, but wasn’t able to help them stave off relegation from the Championship.

He reveals in his interview with McNamara how disillusioned he became with the amount of dishonesty in football and, coupled with his pregnant wife losing two of the triplets she was expecting, he put family before football and, at the age of only 31, dropped down four divisions to play non-league with Eastleigh.

He talked about the tough decisions he’d had to make in an interview before a FA Cup tie Eastleigh played against Bolton Wanderers.

In 2016, Harding joined Whitehawk as a player, then became part of the coaching set-up, and was briefly caretaker manager before the appointment of Steve King.

Much-travelled Ade Akinbiyi a big hit in brief Seagulls spell

A STRIKER with wildly differing fortunes in a varied and much-travelled career made a good early impression when joining Albion on loan from Norwich City back in the autumn of 1994.

Ade Akinbiyi had not long since broken through to the City team as a teenager and he scored four times in seven games on loan to the Seagulls.

Just turned 20, Akinbiyi arrived at a time when Liam Brady’s Albion hadn’t registered a win for 11 games and, although Albion lost the first game he played in, the remaining six produced three wins and three draws.

AA scores

There is some YouTube footage of him scoring Albion’s second goal on a snowy pitch at Hull City’s old Boothferry Park ground in a game that finished 2-2.

“He is powerful and big and he can take knocks and we have missed having somebody in that mould,” Brady wrote in his matchday programme notes.

Later in his career Akinbiyi would prove to be a real handful for the Seagulls – I recall him shrugging off a powder-puff challenge from a young Dan Harding at Withdean and muscling his way to a winning goal for Stoke City. Manager Mark McGhee subbed Harding off and publicly lambasted him afterwards.

Born in Hackney on 10 October 1974, Akinbiyi was more interested in athletics at an early age, as he told the Lancashire Telegraph.

“I was interested in football but not massive on playing it,” he said. His school PE teacher persuaded him otherwise. “I went to play for my district team, Hackney, and it all started from there.”

From Hackney, Akinbiyi joined nearby Senrab, the team that blooded the likes of Bobby Zamora, Leon Knight, John Terry and Jermain Defoe.

His age group earned a place in a children’s tournament in Great Yarmouth called the ‘Canary Cup’ where he was spotted by a scout for nearby Norwich, who signed him as a schoolboy.

“The schoolboy and youth team system was second to none, as it still is now,” said Akinbiyi. But he found it hard living away from home, missing his mum’s native Nigerian cooking.

But after finding new digs with a few of his team-mates, he stuck at it and earned a dream debut as a substitute against Bayern Munich in the return leg of their UEFA Cup second round game, less than a month after his 19th birthday.

“I thought my debut would come in a cup game, perhaps against lower league opposition, not against Bayern Munich,” he said. “Not many people make their debut in a European cup competition.”

Although Akinbiyi made 51 league appearances for Norwich, his Canaries career never really took off, hence the Brighton loan spell and a similar move to Hereford United.

Eventually, though, a manager who believed in him, Tony Pulis, made him a record £250,000 buy for Gillingham in January 1997. Akinbiyi repaid Pulis’ faith in him with 29 goals in 67 starts, leading to Bristol City paying £1.2million for the striker following their promotion to the old Division One (now the Championship).

akinbiyi + colin lee

After scoring 21 goals in 47 league appearances for the Robins, in 1999 he completed a £3.5m move to Wolverhampton Wanderers. In the same year, he played his one and only game for Nigeria, in a friendly against Greece in Athens.

He made a great start at Wolves, scoring eight times in his first 12 games for Colin Lee’s side, but a year later, switched to Premier League Leicester City, after the Foxes’ boss Peter Taylor (later to replace Micky Adams at Brighton) paid out a £5m fee for the striker.

Ade A LeicesterAkinbiyi was brought in to replace Emile Heskey, a real Filbert Street hero who had been sold to Liverpool for £11m. However, his goal touch eluded him and he managed to score only 11 goals in 58 league appearances for the club – some Leicester fans dubbing him Ade Akin-Bad-Buy!

Akinbiyi looked back on it in an interview with Four Four Two magazine and said: “I came in as Emile Heskey’s replacement, but he is a different breed of footballer.

“He’s big, strong and scores goals, but, back then, if Heskey wasn’t scoring a lot he could get away with it. He was the local hero. I was a different player – I’d be running in behind and trying to cause people problems. But Leicester looked at my record in the Championship and thought I’d come and do the same thing.”

Eventually they cut their losses and sold him to Division One Crystal Palace for £2.2m. At Selhurst, he was rather ignominiously given the number 55 shirt! Having scored just one goal in 14 league and cup appearances, in 2003 he was loaned to Stoke City, under his old boss Pulis.

He scored twice – the second goal coming in the last game of the 2002-03 season, when the Potters won 1-0 against Reading to seal their Division One (now the Championship) status (the season Albion were relegated).

Akinibiyi discussed the events in an interview with another ex-Stoke, Burnley and Brighton striker, Chris Iwelumo, for Stoke City FC TV.

AA chat with CIIt led to Akinbiyi joining on a permanent basis, on a free transfer, and he became a cult hero with the Stoke City crowd.

In March 2005, Burnley signed him for £600,000 – and he was promptly sent off on his debut! The game was only two minutes old when he head-butted George McCartney of Sunderland, and was shown a straight red.

Less than a year later, he was on the move again, switching to Sheffield United in January 2006 for what was then a club record £1.75m fee.

He scored on his Blades debut against Derby County but by October that year he was in the news for his alleged involvement in a training ground bust-up with team-mate Claude Davis.

In all, Akinbiyi made only five appearances for the Blades in the Premiership in 2006 and, on New Year’s Day 2007 he returned to Burnley for a £650,000 fee, with add-ons.

He scored in his first game back, against Reading, but only notched three by the season’s end. Burnley fans have some good memories of him, particularly in a brief spell when he played alongside loan signing Andrew Cole, but on 2 April 2009, Burnley offloaded him to Houston Dynamo.

Dave Thomas, a prolific writer on all things Burnley, talked about Akinbiyi’s cult hero status among Burnley fans, telling thelongside.co.uk: “Ade certainly had a talent and that talent was scoring goals. The story that he was utterly bad at this is totally inaccurate, but that is the legend that developed, at one club in particular, Leicester City.

“In truth, at Burnley too, he missed sitters that Harry Redknapp might say his wife could have scored. But then so do all other players and, in many games, he displayed all the things that he was good at, and the attributes that he had in abundance.”

After he was released by Houston, back in the UK he played 10 games for Notts County, as they won the League Two title In 2009-10, and the following season pitched up in south Wales to play for then non-league Newport County.

In July 2013, Akinbiyi became a player-coach for Colwyn Bay, managed by his former Burnley teammate Frank Sinclair, but both resigned in January 2015 after a 5-0 defeat at Boston.

Akinbiyi now lives in Manchester and in 2015 was interviewed about work he has done as an ambassador for Prostate Cancer UK after his father died from the disease.

Booed on his Burnley debut, Gifton Noel-Williams was the centre forward Brighton craved

GNW DackFOR ALMOST the whole of Championship seasons 2004-05 and 2005-06, Albion manager Mark McGhee spoke about how the side desperately needed an old-fashioned hold-up centre forward.

In the first season, he converted defender Adam Virgo to the role with some degree of success, but after Virgo’s summer 2005 departure to Celtic, the problem returned, in spite of the occasional promise of the inexperienced Colin Kazim-Richards.

It wasn’t until March 2006 that McGhee finally landed his man in the shape of 6’ 3” Gifton Noel-Williams, on loan to the end of the season from Burnley.

The omens were good when he made his debut against Luton on 25 March because he had scored on his debut for both Burnley and previous club Stoke City. Sure enough, he did it again, netting with a brave diving header from an Adam Hinshelwood cross after 18 minutes.

It demonstrated only too emphatically what Albion had been missing for so long.

Unfortunately a glaring miss by midfielder Dean Hammond saw the chance to go 2-0 up squandered and Luton went straight back down the other end and equalised when ‘keeper Wayne Henderson could only parry Warren Feeney’s shot and the rebound went into the open net off on-loan defender Paul McShane running back.

Luton were destined to join Albion and Leeds as the fall-guys from the division but they hung on that afternoon on a quagmire of a pitch to earn a point.

GNW BHAGary Hart came close to nicking it for the Albion with a volley that struck a post but the points were shared, which was no good for either side.

McGhee was philosophical after the game, recognising it would “take something astonishing” for Albion to stay up with only six games remaining. It would. They didn’t.

Nevertheless, before the inevitable happened, Noel-Williams scored again  – on Easter Saturday 2006.

Brittle old Ipswich, with Joe Royle in charge, stood in the way of Albion notching some desperately needed points, but somehow I just fancied their chances that day and I made a late decision only on the morning of the match to travel up to Ipswich with my son Rhys.

Wearing the all-burgundy away strip, Albion had a new-found confidence in their play thanks to the arrival of Noel-Williams, who, after scoring against Luton, had got an assist by laying on a goal for Paul Reid in a 2-0 win at Millwall two weeks before.

McGhee made an interesting choice in playing Hart at right back rather than Reid, who slotted in ahead instead. The decision was justified when Hart’s strong challenge on Alan Lee midway inside the Albion half enabled Hammond to release Kazim-Richards down the right.

He crossed into the left back area, where the lurking Noel-Williams seemed to have acres of space to turn on the cross and drive the ball home from ten yards. Photographer Simon Dack captured the goal celebration for the front page of the Sports Argus (below).

GNW IpsIf that delight was not enough, teenage defender Joel Lynch made sure our trip was a memorable one by scoring his first-ever goal for the club.

Albion, never wanting to make life too easy for themselves or their fans, allowed Ipswich to pull a goal back when Lee flicked on from former Seagull Darren Currie’s cross for substitute Nicky Forster – a future £75,000 signing for Albion – to score. But thankfully it was too late for Ipswich to salvage anything from the game.

It was all to turn pear-shaped on the Easter Monday at home to Sheffield Wednesday, but for a couple of days at least the Great Escape still seemed a possibility.

Nevertheless, Noel-Williams seemed to enjoy his brief time with the Seagulls, telling Andy Naylor in The Argus: “I like the way the team plays football. They play my type of football.

“It is not only in the air for me to flick it on, they get the ball on the deck and want to knock it about a bit as well. That suits me, that’s what I like.

“The manager hasn’t asked me to be tearing around the pitch, he’s asked me just to use my movement and get into the channels when I have to. I appreciate that, so I’m enjoying my football, and, when I’m enjoying my football, I think I’m not a bad player.”

The downside of not having played regularly at Burnley was a lack of match fitness, and he admitted: “I play all right for maybe the first hour and then that’s it, my legs are gone.”

Certainly a fascinating character, Noel-Williams was still only 26 when he pitched up at the Albion, and was already a father of six children.

But how did he end up at Brighton?

An article on the excellent Burnley supporters website,claretsmad.co.uk, gives a great insight into the background. Published in June 2013, Tony Scholes wrote: “There was heavy criticism of his signing and he was booed by his own fans during his league debut for us at Crewe on the opening day of the 2005-06 season.

“He was one of Steve Cotterill’s five summer signings during that 2005 summer, and the plan was to partner him up front with his old Stoke City team mate Ade Akinbiyi, a partnership people were quick to say hadn’t worked when they had played together for Stoke.”

Scholes continued: “He must have wondered what he’d come to when he was roundly booed in that first match of the season at Crewe. He scored our equaliser, then hit the woodwork in the last minute which would have earned us a point.”

A week later, he missed a penalty against Coventry, and, even though he scored in a home draw against Derby, the poor start to the season saw Cotterill tinker with the line-up, and he lost his place.

He was then a peripheral figure and, just before the end of the loan window in March, Cotterill, who had once been on loan to Brighton himself, loaned him to struggling Albion.

Burnley fans thought they had seen the last of him but, despite being placed on the transfer list, and missing the club’s pre-season trip to Italy, he was still a Burnley player when the season began.

Then, remarkably, he went from zero to hero during the space of a few days in September. When he came on as a substitute against Colchester, yet again he was met by a chorus of boos from the Burnley faithful.

Scholes said: “The booing that greeted him was shameful. How he could go on and play in those circumstances is hard to believe, but he did and by the end of the game he’d turned those boos to cheers. We lost, but he’d played well.

“Three days later we went 2-0 down against Barnsley and he was brought on to replace the injured Alan Mahon. This was without doubt Gifton’s night. He never turned in a better performance for Burnley, and after Jon Harley pulled one back to give us hope, he scored a hat trick as we ran out 4-2 winners.”

Taken off the transfer list, over the next couple of months he became one of the most influential players in the side as Burnley climbed to third in the table.

Sadly, it didn’t last. The team and player’s form dipped from November.

“As the results went against us, the rumblings of discontent about him were being heard in the stands again,” said Scholes.

Meanwhile, Akinbiyi returned to the club which further reduced the chances of his former strike partner getting games. As the January transfer window came to a close, Noel-Williams was sold to Real Murcia in Spain for £50,000.

“Burnley fans will remember him as a player who struggled with pace and movement, a player who didn’t score enough goals, and a player they just loved to criticise,” said Scholes.

How different it all was from the early promise he had shown when blooded in the Watford first team at the tender age of 16.

Born in Islington on 21 January 1980 to Jamaican parents, the young Noel-Williams played for district and county representative sides and Carl Dixon, a coach at his local Sunday side Apex Arvensdale, recommended him to Watford.

When he played in a national cup final fo Islington and Camden at Highbury, he scored a hat-trick in front of the Sky Sports TV cameras and Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea all took an interest in him but he stuck with Watfod, and it paid off when, in 1996, Kenny Jackett gave him his first team debut at just 16.

A serious knee injury sustained in a tackle by Sunderland’s Paul Butler in 1999 put him out of the game for the best part of 18 months and he subsequently developed rheumatoid arthritis in both knees.

In an interview with itv.com on 4 April 2016, the striker revealed how he might never have had a career at all if it hadn’t been for former Watford chairman Elton John.

GNW WatHe was told he would have to give up the game, but Watford’s pop icon chairman was living in America at the time and saw an article about a drug that could save his career. He contacted Graham Taylor and they paid for him to get the necessary treatment.

The injury and illness came just as Noel-Williams had received a call-up to the England Under-21 squad. At 18, he had been playing in junior England teams alongside Michael Owen and Michael Bridges.

Noel-Williams told interviewer Will Unwin: “Even though I had rheumatoid arthritis I was still able to play at Championship level and abroad.”

After seven years and 33 goals in 169 appearances for Watford, Noel-Williams signed for Stoke City; Tony Pulis taking him on a Bosman free transfer in 2003.

Across two seasons, he scored 23 goals in 88 games for The Potters banishing all thoughts that he wasn’t fit to play.

Then, in 2005, he joined Burnley because he was encouraged to by his former Stoke teammate, Akinbiyi (another striker who had impressed on loan from Norwich to Brighton earlier in his career, when he scored four times in seven games).

As an aside, Akinbiyi had distinctly mixed fortunes throughout his career and after he completed a £600,000 move to Burnley was sent off on his debut within two minutes for head butting Sunderland’s George McCartney!

But back to Noel-Williams, who told itv.com: “I did not want to go to Burnley, to be honest. What happened was that Tony Pulis left Stoke at the end of the season, he went to Plymouth – so as he was leaving and a new manager coming in, I didn’t want to stay at Stoke.

“Ade Akinbiyi was at Burnley at the time and he was with me at Stoke so he kept phoning me, saying ‘come to Burnley, they want us to play up front together’, so that’s why I went to Burnley, but then six months later Ade left to go to Sheffield United, so my time at Burnley crashed a little bit and that’s why I didn’t stay there for so long.”

Noel-Williams said he didn’t really see eye-to-eye with Cotterill, which hastened his departure to Spain.

The Spanish lifestyle suited him but his game time was restricted mainly to substitute appearances and when Real Murcia were promoted he was told he would not be guaranteed a place.

So he switched to Elche, where he said he enjoyed his football but they didn’t pay him for a year because of financial issues. He ended up having to take action via FIFA to get the money he was owed, and left after just one season.

His old Watford mentor, Jackett, gave him a short-term contract with Millwall, but he played just the one game whilst Tresor Kandol and Neil Harris were unavailable. On 5th November 2008, he signed for Yeovil Town on a month’s loan.

He played eight times for Yeovil, the last coming on the Saturday before Christmas. But 2009 saw him once again without a club and on 8th January it was confirmed that he was signing a two-year deal with American USL club Austin Aztex, a club managed by former Burnley boss Adrian Heath.

He was released at the end of the 2009 season and signed for American fourth-tier side DFW Tornados (based in Dallas).

After he packed up playing in 2010, he became a coach at the Brentwood Christian School in Austin, Texas.

He returned to the UK and linked up with his former Watford teammate Allan Smart at Daventry Town and subsequently had various coaching and managing roles with non-league sides – Northwood, Burnham and Codicote. In November 2017, he was sacked after Hertfordshire-based Codicote, who play in the 10th tier of English football, lost 12 of their first 14 league matches.

1 GN-W Argus2 GN-W Argus main3 G N-W PA (watford)

Pictures published by The Argus show THAT diving header to score on his Albion debut, and a study in determination to get to the ball. Also a Press Association image of a youthful Gifton in Watford colours.